Season 8, Episode 1: Operation Lightspeed

"Operation Lightspeed"
Episode 1
Air Date: February 12th, 2000

And thus, a new adventure begins for a whole new team of rangers, this time, after two heavy space operas, we head back to Earth where 3 men are roaming the desert for whatever reason.  I guess they're nomads or something, it's not explained ever but we follow these men until they arrive some ancient tomb.  As one does when at an ancient tomb, they begin exploring and one sets some kind of reaction that creates a crevice that one of them falls into.  What's with these season premieres and people falling into crevices??? O_o Anyway, he shots about finding the tomb and they follow him down there.  They begin lighting up the tomb with their torches as they go to an old sarcophagus.  Even after receiving warnings with the tomb, the idiots still open it as smoke and sparks fire out of it and hideous spirits are released as well as escape the tomb.  Great job guys, I'm sure that was nothing to worry about!!! -_-  I want to say, I really like the Lightspeed Rescue theme song/opening.  I forgot to mention during my Lost Galaxy reviews how much I LOVED the Lost Galaxy theme!!!  It's definitely in my top 5 and while the Lightspeed Rescue theme isn't as good, it would still be somewhere in my top 10 theme songs of the show for sure! :)

Anyway, as the spirits make their way to a city called Mariner Bay, they begin to attack innocent people before we arrive at some secret base where a woman arrives at a meeting to tell her father that "they've escaped".  Soon he enters a safe and takes out multicolored folders as he says it's time to bring them in!  We first go to Joel Rowlings aka the Sky Cowboy as he finishes performing in a stunt show.  As he cockily signs fliers of himself to his adoring fans, he is approached by two men in black (insert joke here that's already been done) as they tell him to come with them.  Next we go to Kelsey Winslow, who is mountain climbing....I will never understand people like this but given what we find out about Kelsey in terms of her personality, she is batsh!t crazy! O_O  I mean, I'm all for extreme sports but this girl mostly puts her life in danger like most who like extreme sports athletes and I just find is baffling! O_o  Anyway, as soon as she gets to the top of the cliff, she runs into those same men in black guys that got Joel.  Next is Chad Lee, who we'll learn is a scuba diver as well as a martial artist, working at some Sea World type resort as he finishes performing for a stadium full of people.  The men in black meet him at the end of the pool to recruit him.  Last, to be recruited is a firefighter named Carter Grayson as one of the men in black ask him where he is during a fire....-_-...anyway, he tells them he's heading inside the burning building as Carter is after a small girl who is still trapped in there.  As he leaves, down a fire ridden hallway, he sees what looks like a fire demon as an inferno heads toward him and he jumps out a nearby window with the little girl rapped in multiple blankets.  The one who's been recruiting them, Dana Mitchelle goes to the girl and helps her to breath as she's paramedic.  As Carter tries to recover from what he saw, Dana tells him he needs to come with her even though it's a bad time; to Carter's confusion!!!!

As the spirits continue to make their way through the city, they finally enter their own dimension where a large Shull Cavern stands in the middle of the ghoulish realm.  Soon the spirits turn into actual demons.  The leader, Diabolico arrives with his generals, Loki who explains what has happened to their land in their absence and....ehhhhhh...Vipra....who thankfully stands there and doesn't because..boy when she does.....O_O.....  Moving on, the recruits are being flown on a helicopter that heads to a large submarine.  The submarine than heads to what will be the rangers' headquarters for the season, the Lightspeed Aqua Base.  I really like the Lightspeed Aqua Base, especially considering they have an enormous crew of personal to help with their new, man-made morphing powers.  After Joel can't help himself by touching one of the panels, the recruits are finally introduced to their mentor this season, Captain Mitchell, the leader of this particular government controlled program.  Captain Mitchell wastes no time in telling the soon to be new rangers what's up as the spirits that are attacking were once demons that ruled over this area of the world thousands of years ago until they were all captured by a warlock....BUT....thanks to those idiots that opened the sarcophagus, the spirits are free again and will do anything to reclaim their part of the world.  Lightspeed has basically formed to give this new recruits powers, weapons, etc. to help them combat and eventually stop the demons for good.  Of course, Joel doesn't by it but Carter's remembers what he saw in the burning building and instantly believe it.  After Captain Mitchell receives footage of the spirits attacking the city that the new recruits also see, they all eventually agree to do it.  After Captain Mitchell reveals their Rescue morphers, he also reveals that Dana is the fifth and final member of the team.  Apparently, he's been training her for 18 years for this......which I will talk more about in my overview down the line.  But soon the new rangers leave, getting new jackets as well as humvee to drive out of the Aqua Base.

As the rangers arrive into the city, they see a fire monster (aka Psycho Red's monster form only darkened in certain areas) leading the season's foot soldiers, the Batlings, against the innocent people of the city. The Batlings....sigh.....the dumbest looking foot soldiers of ANY season but anyway, we're back to Sentai original minions so I guess that's a good thing??? O_o As the rangers try to save the people, Carter just tries to straight up run over the monster....God, I love Carter!!! More on his awesomeness latter!!! :) As the rangers get their ass kicked, Captain Mitchell finally tells them to morph and they come together to do so.  The Lightspeed morph is rather unique and cool, if now a bit weird how their individual helmet emblems melt onto them to form their suits.  The first fight goes as smooth as you'd expect because their powers helps them able to handle the foot soldiers as well as defeat the monster with ease as they combine their blasters to do so.  As the rangers demorph, the crowd witnesses this and cheers for them. This is the first season where the whole secret identity thing is dropped and thankfully so since Zordon implemented these rules a long time ago and after his death, isn't needed anymore! As the rangers return to their base and everyone congratulates them, Captain Mitchell tells them there is more work to done as that wasn't Diabolico as the episode concludes.  "Operation Lightspeed" is the first single episode premiere since the very first episode as Power Rangers and because of that, follows almost the exact same structure: an ancient evil is accidentally released after thousands of years and a team of Power Rangers need to be randomly recruited to stop it. Lots of exposition forced in with the tail end of the episode deals with the actual ranger action.  The only difference is these powers were government based instead of extraterrestrial in origin. Overall, it's one of the weaker premieres for that matter after the past two season premieres being so amazing and world building.

Final Morph: C